Dashwood

Giles Blunt: Black Fly Season

Black Fly Season is Mystery novel set in Algonquin Bay, just North of Toronto. Its spring time in Algonquin Bay which is prime time for black flies, which are a very irritating little black insect. The plot begins in a little bar when something strange happens. A beautiful redhead girl shows up with no conception of were she is, or even who she is. Little does everyone know that the redhead has suffered a .32 caliber gun shot wound to her head. As the situation escalates we meet detective John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme. The detectives rule out a possible suicide and start investigating an attempted murder. In their efforts they come across the dead body of a biker named wombat who's body was found lying on a cave floor with maggots eating away at what was left of the dead body. The plot develops around Red Bear, a Cuban drug dealer who identifies himself as Indian. Through plot twists that take them to Toronto and back, they end up on a cottage on Lake Nipissing. The novel ends with a shootout and with Cardinal solving the case.

I found that throughout the novel Giles Blunt used very convincing form of diction. For example Giles Blunt did a good job of portraying the darkness and confidence in the character Red Bear's dialogue. Giles Blunt had an intriguing way of building up the plot through a series of surprising and interesting twists which lead to a breathtaking ending which left the reader very satisfied. The development of the characters was very interesting. I found that there were three significant groups in the novel. There were the bikers, the investigators, and then Red Bear's gang. The bikers developed into a rebellious untrustworthy group but not necessarily the bad guys. Then there is Cardinal with his group of detectives who turned out to not be as trustworthy as one may have thought. Then there is Red Bear's gang who developed into a dark evil characters who no one trusted from the start.


One of the passages that i found very interesting was describing how Read Bear wasn't actually Indian. I found this interesting because the passage also describes how he is wanted for torturing and murdering several people in Miami and how his real name is actually Raymond Beltran (page 318). Another passage that I found interesting was the passage where we found out that the mysterious red head in the bar had actually been shot in the head! I found this very surprising that this lady had walked into a bar appearing physically OK when she had recently been shot in the head (page 29). I also found the passage where Cardinal found the dead body in the cave interesting because of the manner that it was found in. Decapitated, hands and legs cut of, it was a sign of pure savagery which made the novel that much more interesting.